Diabolicae Foedus
by Ceris Malfoy
Summary: One by one his people die before him, and with each pointless death, his prayers grow shorter and weaker, until finally he says nothing at all and just watches as his faith shatters irreparably. Shattered Glass AU. Starscream centric. RnR!


**Title:** Diabolicae Foedus

**By:** Ceris Malfoy

**Summary:** One by one his people die before him, and with each pointless death, his prayers grow shorter and weaker, until finally he says nothing at all and just watches as his faith shatters irreparably.

**Pairings: **many/Starscream, (very slight) Unicron/Starscream

**Warnings: **murder, death, soul/ember selling a.k.a. blasphemy, violence (nothing graphic….) rape, and underage rape.

**Continuity:** Shattered Glass, major AU

**A/N:** This started when a friend made me finally sit down and watch Black Butler and Hell Girl. Both animes dealt with similar subject matter – that of making a deal with a devil/demon – in very interesting ways. And both highly influenced this. I couldn't do G1 with this, as I have issues with the idea of G1 Starscream ever being 'innocent'.

* * *

><p>"<em>Most people interpret silence as rejection!"<em>

_-Ali Vali_

"_Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all."_

_-Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name_

* * *

><p>Fire.<p>

Crimson flames consume everything in their path, spewing sparks that burn more brilliantly than the stars he had been named for. The crystal of the so-far untouched buildings in the far distance reflect the raging fire where once they had reflected the light of the morning sun. The fire rains down from the sky like divine judgment, but there is nothing divine about this. Artillery fire can be heard over the sound of the explosions and the roar of the inferno, and above it all the sound of laughter, mad and gleeful.

He watches helplessly as his city burns before him, brought to his knees and kept there by cruel servos gripping his already shredded wings, occasionally digging deeper into the fragile wounds and ripping them open further, just to hear his agonized wail.

From the conflagration rises a thin, desperate wail before it is abruptly cut off. Relative silence for a moment – the only noise is the crackle of gunfire and the rumble of fire – before the screams rise in echoing crescendo, a multitude of howling voices crying out in pain and horror and supplication, begging to be spared, to be saved, and he is helpless to anything to save them.

He is helpless to do anything but watch, pain rippling through his senses and the screams of his people ringing in his audials.

* * *

><p>Ash is thick in the air, and small remnants of the inferno which had roared throughout the night are still burning. The army that should never have existed surrounds a small group of his people, all of whom are stained with ash and soot and energon. He wishes he could move, wishes he could comfort each and every last one of them, wishes he could reassure his people that this is <em>not their fault<em>, that they have done _nothing_ to deserve this. If anyone is to blame for the atrocity that had taken place, it is him, because he'd been foolish enough to believe that refusing a mech who was obviously insane could be done without consequence.

He had been forced to watch the inaccuracy of that thought last night, and is forced to watch the continued inaccuracy now. One by one his people, all full-grown mechs, are dragged before him, and he is forced to meet their optics and see the realization that he is powerless to save them before they are set upon by the depraved that hold them captive. One by one his people are tortured, raped, and murdered before him. One by one he holds their gaze until the bitter end, whispering prayers to Primus to stop this madness, to save at least _one_ of them.

One by one his people die before him, and with each pointless death, his prayers grow shorter and weaker, until finally he says nothing at all and just watches as his faith shatters irreparably.

* * *

><p>They aren't done with his once-beautiful city yet. The impossible army is ransacking the ruins and ashes, defiling the dead, prodding foundations and cubbyholes, looking for something.<p>

It takes him only a moment of thought to realize that they are searching for the young ones. They are not content with the murder of the vast majority of his frame-kin, they want the hatchlings, too. He is cold and numb in the face of this revelation, unable to feel much of anything any longer; the grief and horror and rage so strong, too strong, for his ember to handle or his mind to process.

Despite himself he gives one last prayer to Primus, begging the ancient deity to stop this, to prevent the younglings from being found, to protect the little lives that have no one and nothing else left to protect them.

* * *

><p>His prayer goes unanswered.<p>

He is led to the hidden underground crèche where the young ones were kept, and is chained down. Weak from hunger and sick from grief/horror/_rage_, he is again forced to watch, unable to look away as these monsters fall upon sparklings and younglings alike with no remorse and no mercy. He watches as the young are forced upon thick spikes too long and too wide for their delicate, tiny bodies; watches as some are eaten alive; watches as still-developing wings are separated from still-developing bodies; watches as those too young to understand what was happening were forced to endure pain beyond their imagination before finding some measure of peace in death.

He watches, memorizing each face, each sound, numb now, so numb. His ember feels like it has frozen; he has endured so much sorrow and horror since his refusal so long ago that he is incapable of feeling anything else but the all-consuming rage that tickles against the edge of his awareness, waiting.

* * *

><p>His captors gleefully savage his wings and his body, taking turns and goading each other into new and heightened levels of perversity. These mechs are madness and hatred personified, but despite how they paw at him, he makes not a sound, merely watches them with optics cold and promising. He feels the pain they force upon him, but dimly, a thin echo of what he should be feeling.<p>

The rage inside him simmers and boils, waiting.

* * *

><p>Voices tease the edge of his awakening conscious, remnants of dreams he cannot recall and does not want to. If he concentrates, he would understand them, but he doesn't want to, too tired to bother. He is always tired now, body weak from pain and starvation. His living reality is a nightmare he cannot escape from; his dreams are dim horrors in comparison, but no less tragic and terrifying. He is hounded by demons and guilt no matter what he does, and he is tired, so tired.<p>

He wishes for peace, begs for it in the silence of his own mind, and always he carefully avoids the rage that even now awaits his notice.

* * *

><p>Wind teases his wings and he moans despite himself. He has spent so long in pain that he has forgotten how good it felt to have the breeze upon his wings, but he is dreaming, has to be dreaming, because he knows there are no vents or windows in his cell. Not that he <em>has<em> wings left to feel the breeze with.

His optics open, and he is staring at a dark void, is floating in the vast emptiness. Shapes and shadows move beyond his vision, and again the voices whisper invitingly, but he merely closes his optics again.

He is so very tired.

* * *

><p>He watches the mechs as they cautiously enter through the cell-block doors. He knows who they are, if not by name then by deduction. His captors bitch and whine and moan about the 'weaklings' who dare to stand against the 'new order' and he has watched as many of these rebels found their way into the same fate as that which he has suffered for far too long.<p>

Obviously, these mechs he has never seen before are here to rescue their fellows. He wonders if they will free him, too. He does not care either way. He is so tired, too tired, and all he longs for now is silence and peace.

He watches as one by one the cells are emptied, a field-medic patching wounds that would prevent movement, but clearly waiting on the rest until the wounded can get to a repair bay. He watches as one by one they turn and stare at him, unsure and wary. He does not blame them. His kind were feared long before Cybertron had been torn in two, the stigmata of being sparked a war-build in times of peace too strong for most to overcome.

"What about him?" the medic asks, obviously wary, but willing to treat him.

The large one with wary blue optics shakes his head. "No," he said. "He is not one of ours."

_Not one of ours._

_Not. One. Of. Ours._

_Not._

_One._

_Of…._

The words awake in him the rage his apathy had almost smothered. He says nothing and does not move, but nonetheless these mechs with their pitying blue optics jerk back, startled, terrified of a single heavily-damaged seeker.

They should be.

* * *

><p>His captors are furious at the break-in, and he is but the vessel they release their frustrations into. Their treatment of him reaches new lows, but always he is silent and watching, cold and furious.<p>

* * *

><p>"Long have you suffered, seeker. Long have you born your grief and rage locked deep within your ember, unable and unwilling to show those whom have hurt you so just how broken you really are. Long did you once pray to my brother, though longer still have you been silent." The silver and gold mech with the poison-green optics smiles, and in the void, the whispers grows louder.<p>

"You claim to be a god," he murmurs. His mind is still quick and keen even after all these years, and he is easily able to read between the lines.

"I can give you vengeance," the mech says, ignoring his statement. "Should you make a covenant with me, I will repay each mech to have wronged you and yours in kind. I will eat of their embers and they will never taste the serenity and peace of the Vault of Embers; never find absolution from their crimes."

He says nothing in response, simply stares at the mech.

"There is a price, however – there must _always_ be a price. Should you make this pact, know that your ember will belong to me as well, though not until the pact is complete. You will never rejoin your kin in paradise."

"Say my name," he says, watching the mech claiming to be the Unmaker who smiles triumphantly in return. Not one living being has said his name since the day his city was razed to the ground and his people eradicated from existence. He is the last of his race, and there were now none living whom could have recalled him fondly, and if any mech had the knowledge of his name then it would be a god.

"_Starscream_," Unicron purrs, and he smiles at the dark god, easily slipping into a kneeling position before the silver and gold mech. Already in his mind he is pledging mind, body, and ember to the god, for this god will not turn his prayers away, will not ignore his rage at the injustices he and his have suffered, will not refuse him vengeance. And he feels it is only fitting that he never joins his kin in the Vault of Embers; part of this is that he is indirectly responsible for them being there, but mostly it is because while he hates the insane mechs whom have caused his pain, he _loathes_ Primus with every fiber of his being.

Primus would not save even _one_ youngling. _Not one_. He can not, _will not_ give his ember over to a being with so little regard for those who worship him. The price of Unicron's regard is steep, true, but once upon a time he had been willing to pay all that and more if Primus would save even _one_.

"Say it," the Unmaker says.

"I, Starscream, heir to Starsinger, once-Lord of Crystal City, ruler now of dust and ash and rusted corpses, do hereby enter into a covenant with Unicron, the Dark God. I want, no, I _demand_justice for what was done to me and those under my family's protection. I understand that once the covenant is completed that my ember is forfeit unto Unicron. So mote it be."

The Dark God smiles secretively. "So mote it be," he whispers in return.

* * *

><p>He sits upon a throne of corpses and surveys the river of energon that flows across the wasteland that used to be his home. Before him, across the remains of the very one-sided battle between the Autobot army and a god, stand the Decepticons and their leader.<p>

He remembers those blue optics and the denial of rescue. In some ways he is grateful that the Decepticon leader did not rescue him all those years ago, as he suspects he never would have found either acceptance or justice under that banner. In most ways he is still angry, still hurt, still desiring to rip the mech's self-righteous optics out of his face.

"Your orders, Starscream?" the Dark God asks, and he can hear the mocking laughter and eager greed in the mech's voice. As per the covenant, the Unmaker is bound to his service until his revenge is complete. It is quite the lengthy list, and with each death the covenant grows closer to fulfillment. This doesn't bother him in the slightest.

He doesn't think about it. "Kill them," he orders coldly, settling back in his seat to watch the show.

Unicron smiles and bows ever-so-slightly. "As you wish."

* * *

><p>All of Cybertron is dust and shadow. Nothing moves, nothing lives. His rage has been written into the very core of this planet, and now he is waiting.<p>

Unicron stands before him, smiling, poison-green optics shining with the Dark God's hunger. He will not deny the god. His rage is gone; his need for vengeance settled, and all that is left of him is the endless grief he still bears and the all-consuming tiredness. He wonders what death will be like, but can not bring himself to care overmuch.

The Unmaker touches him, softly, so _gently_, and then firmer. The god keeps touching him, and he surrenders to Unicron's whims with the ease. He who has known nothing but pain and violence for years beyond comprehension finally experiences bliss, such rapturous pleasure that his processor shorts and his ember feels like it is imploding in his chassis. Perhaps it is.

"_Delicious_," he hears his god murmur.

And then, there is nothing.

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><p><strong>And that's that. It's a grim little tale, and is intentionally supposed to be vague and drifty. I hope you guys liked this just as much as I liked writing it. <strong>

**~Ceris**


End file.
